


Whistle While you Work

by NeverComingHome



Category: Kings (TV 2009)
Genre: F/F, Infidelity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-06-10 02:26:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15281553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverComingHome/pseuds/NeverComingHome
Summary: For the prompt: in vino veritas





	Whistle While you Work

Thomasina is not drunk. She is an aide-de-camp, always at the ready with hands primly folded before her, bestowed with the duty of serving and protecting the interests of the royal family.

“Yes, yes, that’s all good and well, but I didn’t ask if you were drunk. I asked if you had drunk enough to tell me why Silas hired you.”

“No.”

Which is the truth essentially, causing her pause. Rose laughs and reaches for the bottle. She wonders vaguely if this is how Silas fell into this very same trap ( _and what an exquisite trap it is_ ) the first time Rose invited him up for coffee, but served wine instead. Did he care? Did he see it for what it was and who was pulling the strings? Did he wonder why the smell of coffee was in the air until the phone rang and Rose exited with two glasses and a smirk; never a player in the game, but always willing to indulge those in it.

During her training she’d been told: A King took care of things, a Queen orchestrated them. Perhaps that explained Rose's fondness for theater, but not the hand atop hers now, the gold and black ring scratching rhythmically across Thomasina’s skin as if she is just another dawdle to be toyed with and lazily inspected.

“You’re a strong woman.” Rose circles behind her and Thomasina registers the sudden movement, but can only swallow the lump in her throat as she realizes what part of the game her queen has jumped to, “a silent woman.”

“A reverent servant to the crown.”

“Whose crown?” She tests, lips brushing the side of Thomasina’s tightly bound hair. “You oversaw the craftsmanship, tell me,” she hooks her fingers around the stem of the half filled glass tugging it closer and lifting it from the table, “which did you prefer?”

Thomasina remembers suspended liquid gold, amber, black, a fine dust of rubies, understated yet gorgeous. She’d still been at the academy, an errand runner sent to deliver the box in which the crowns would rest in wait of the marriage ceremony. The papers had only shown Rose in her tiara, but all knew what would happen should her brother not wed or she prove barren. Until the birth of Jack the unspoken allegiance to her should Silas fall was already on the lips of the country. Both women are imaging the crown now, locked away, only seen by a handful of eyes.

Rose sips from the glass and presses her mouth to Thomasina’s which opens obediently even without the instinct to not make a mess of the table. Despite her care, a drop still falls from their tongues and Rose’s hand touches Thomasina's cheek to turn her attention from it. Thomasina thinks and tries to answer (‘yours, always yours’) like it matters, clinging to politeness and respect even as Rose kneels like it’s the most natural thing in the world. She resists when Thomasina tries to pull her up and eventually they’re both on the ground, smiling at the ridiculousness of the situation; of trying to maintain some sense of etiquette while making out on the dining room tiles amid spilled wine and notary forms. But if anyone could lift a skirt and make love to a woman as if it weren’t her first time since the first time it would be Rose Cross Benjamin.

* * *

 

“Is this what he does on his trips?”

“Get his employees drunk then have sex with them on the floor? No. Too unsanitary.”

“I see.” Rose’s eyes rake over her form with something close to amusement, “Next time I’ll be sure we make it to the bed.”

The ninth time it happens Thomasina is drunk, they’re in a bed in a bedroom less than five people know exist and Rose is on her back whispering that she's never felt so at peace. She hates herself for succumbing to a temptation few would expect her to, but already she knows no other way to be happy than to always be near the person she loves in a way she never loved her spouse.

Unwillingly Thomasina thinks of the first night where she'd been asked the first and only question she’d refused to answer, but knew one day she must.

“That’s what your husband said the day he hired me to keep a secret. This secret.”

* * *

 

“Ten years, eight months and some days.” Silas chuckles hollowly. “Two weeks in consort with the queen and you fold. I don’t know whether to be disappointed,” he raises an eyebrow at Rose, “or impressed.”


End file.
